Pure Storage Launches Flash Enterprise Storage Arrays

Posted on August 24, 2011 By Stuart J. Johnston

Pure Storage, a startup that has staked its future on turning out storage arrays built entirely on Flash memory that it claims are faster, more efficient, take less power, and are more cost effective than hard-disk drives (HDD) for enterprise storage Tuesday introduced its new FlashArray FA-300 Series solid-state drives (SDD).

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company just came out of so-called "stealth mode" with its first product this week, the FA-300, which it claims is "10 times faster and 10 times more power and space efficient than disk-based arrays," according to company statements.

Pure Storage's FA-300 provides what it calls enterprise-grade high availability by supporting clustered active controllers that share storage, and standard SAN interconnects, along with the ability to scale from tens to hundreds of terabytes of storage within a single array.

"Pure Storage all-flash arrays are radically faster, more space and power efficient, more reliable, far simpler to manage and now cheaper than disk-centric alternatives -- so why buy disk for the data center?" Scott Dietzen, CEO of Pure Storage, said in a statement.

The FlashArrays, which will initially be available in two models -- the FA-310 and the FA-320 -- provide some of their efficiency through inline global deduplication, inline data compression, and thin provisioning -- for a as much as 20 times inline data reduction.

Combined with data reduction, the arrays use multi-level cell (MLC) technology to yield a low cost per usable gigabyte calculation that more than compares with high-performance HDD or even with disk/flash hybrids, Pure Storage claims.

"At a conservative 5:1 data reduction ratio, the market price for a full high availability solution is below $5 per gigabyte useable. At 10:1 reduction, the Pure Storage solution is about half the price of disk and decreases with higher levels of data reduction," the company's statement said.

However, how the price to performance comparison actually works out remains a secret so far, as Pure Storage has not yet provided pricing for the arrays.

Stuart J. Johnston is a contributing editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @stuartj1000.

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